The Ghost of Joe Papp: 101 Ways to Kill Writer's Block

This is a rewrite to a play/game that I wrote in college and then made into a video game. It was an experiment, and I always wanted another crack at the script, a full decade and a half later. I enlisted another writer, K. Teagan Clark, to give the scripty a go and to see it with fresh eyes. I added in a bit of meta-ness for self-deprication.

The pitch:

You've returned to your hometown after trying to strike it big as a writer out in the mean old world. You'll find that your old theater festival, the John Q. Public Festival, has fallen upon hard times (but honestly, when has it not?). It's not easy being Lake Tahoe's second-best Shakespeare festival. It falls to you to write a new future for the festival, as well as either mend or break your relations with the people that you left behind.

Or at least that's the story you're trying to tell. You ARE a writer, but the "hometown" is a play you wrote long ago and the "mean old world".... well, no, that's the mean old world. That's not a stand-in for anything.

As Joe Papp's author, you find yourself with the ability to change the story that you are in, making choices between multiple characters that ultimately dictate how the story progresses. Will you save the theater festival, or will you cause the zombie apocalypse?

Content:

The swears

Sex related humor and language

Mature topics such as self-harm

Drug use